FOREIGN Secretary Jack Straw yesterday warned that Iraq must re-admit weapons inspectors "without condition, without delay and without games" - or face the consequences of military action.

Mr Straw, speaking outside the Foreign Office, said he and Prime Minister Tony Blair were holding "intensive discussions" with members of the United Nations Security Council following Iraq's offer to allow weapons inspectors back into the country.

"As the Prime Minister and I have both made clear, Iraq only made their so-called offer in respect of weapons inspectors as the result of intensive pressure by the international community and the pressure of military action if they failed to respond," he said.

The Foreign Secretary denied that Britain and the United States's "mo-mentum" for military action had been lost this week following Iraq's offer, claiming the international community believed Iraq would make an offer "in their terms" in the end.

"But what I would point out is that the same government that wrote this letter three days ago offering to unconditionally re-admit inspectors is exactly the same government which, four days before that, said it would never admit inspectors uncondition-ally. We have seen this before."

Mr Straw said it was now for the Security Council to draft new resolutions which would "deal with the central threat posed by Iraq, namely their possession and potential use of weapons of mass destruction".

The Cabinet minister refused to go into details of the drafting of resolutions, but said they must "give full authority to the weapons inspectors who have to go back in there and re-fresh that authority.

"We also have to ensure that Iraq gets that message because, unless they comply fully with the spirit as well as the letter of the resolutions of the international community, then military action will have to follow to deal with the threat he posed to the world for the last 11 years, and deal with the fact that Iraq flouted the will of the international community through all those years."